Sid Khullar

Flavoursome

The foodie
whocrafts
brands

Buy Line/
Ravi V.Chhabra

It
was four years back at a food review session in
one of Delhi’s luxury hotels that I had met
the over six-foot stout epicurean. He approached
me with a permeating smile: “Hi, I am
Sid”, before I could ask him his profession,
he proposed: “Would you care for a
smoke”, offering me an ultra-slim Korean
cigarette that I greedily accepted.

We puffed away over our
pre-lunch chat as I learnt that Sid, apart from
being a compulsive food blogger and editor at
chefatlarge.in was not only imbrued into cooking
with an insight about Delhi’s myriad
eateries but he also had great concepts for online
brand building in the F&B
arena.

Indeed, since then, he
has been blending his knowledge in IT and passion
for food effectively and has come a long way in
promoting food brands /gluttony! Sid is the
primary contributor to and editor of his online
venture Chef at Large. Having spent 17 years in
varying functions of technology, leaving the field
after a stint heading software research &
development for electrophysiological medical
diagnostics, he now applies himself to learning
more about food and building food and beverage
brands online for his brand-building outfit,
Brands at Large and he blogs at:
www.chefatlarge.in

Excerpts from my recent
interaction with Sid
Khullar:

fnbworld: When, why and how this change
of profession from IT to F&B
writing-marketing?
p>

Sid: Though I’ve
been fooling around in the kitchen since
childhood, the first serious change happened in
2001 when I became quite interested in food and
its avatars. The second in 2007 when I started
blogging at Chef at Large and the third in 2009
when I found technology just didn’t interest
me any longer, having been around the block
multiple times. I quit my IT career and thought of
a business that involved food, people and
technology... which turned out to be brand
marketing for food, beverage and hospitality; a
mixture of every element that motivates
me.

fnbworld: Any family
influences in cooking and
photography?

Sid: My mother Vinny
Khullar, is a good cook and quite the foodie - my
nature is probably inherited from her. Other
than that, food and photography were incidental
I’d say.

fnbworld: How and when did
you conceive Chef at
Large?

Sid: Chef at Large
started in 2007 primarily because I’d
started cooking like it was going out of fashion
and wanted to share my experiences. The blog
rapidly evolved into one that is better known
today for food reviews than cooking per se. Having
said that, the Chef at Large community on Facebook
is one of the few out there that’s composed
of people who are truly serious about their food
with a high percentage of cooks, excellent ones at
that!

Sid: Rather than a
particular cuisine, I’d say my favourite
type of food is the home-cooked variety from any
culture, community or country. Where else can we
experience honest, traditional and delicious food
that’s untouched by the taint of commercial
desire?

fnbworld: How often
do you cook at home and how do your wife and
children/friends rate
you?

Sid: I’ve been
away from cooking for the last year or so and used
to cook fairly regularly before then. Increased
activities on both Brands at Large and Chef at
Large have successfully kept me away from the
kitchen. My wife, children and friends enjoy my
cooking though they’re kind enough to
underplay my bloopers. Since I rarely cook
‘tried and tested’ dishes when people
are over and choose to experiment instead, the
experience can be quite random.

fnbworld: Can you tell us a bit about your
company Brands at Large and who can hire you at
what cost?

Sid: Brands at Large is
a company that creates, executes, monitors and
evaluates brand propagation campaigns, mostly for
brands in the food, beverage and hospitality
space. Apart from this space, we also have
interests in social activism and political
propagation. Anyone in the F&B and hospitality
space can choose to work with us. However, we must
believe in the brand and be fans ourselves,
without which our engagement becomes an exercise
in prevarication; not a path we’d like to
embark on. Apart from brand campaigns, we also
train companies in being social from the inside
out.

fnbworld: If you were to name your most
favourite Indian city that’s completely into
cuisines, which would it be,
reasons?

Sid: I’m going to
be mauled for this, but I’d say Delhi.
Having been to most Metros, I find Delhi to be the
one with the best mix of legal infrastructure
(closing times for instance), variety of cuisines
and foodies to support further growth as opposed
to many others I’ve seen. It’s fun to
dislike Delhi, but this is one strong reason for
me to like this city.

fnbworld: How is your company different
from other marketing outfits...what’s the
USP?

Sid: We’re
different because (a) we’re uniquely
positioned to work with one vertical –
F&B, Hospitality and (b) we will not work with
brands who we aren’t convinced
about.

fnbworld: Does IT and food writing/food
business blend.
How?

Sid: I
don’t think it does. Do you?

fnbworld: Any
pre-requisites for a company that wants to hire
Brands at Large for
marketing?<
/p>

Sid: Yes, a
good, solid product or service offering and a
tangible USP of sorts.

fnbworld: Your favourite
food joints in
Delhi?

Sid: I like Olive Beach
and Blooms for their Sunday Brunches, Gung for fun
with Korean food, Nagaland Kitchen and Yeti for
north-east Indian food, Chor Bizarre for Kashmiri,
Indian Accent for Indian food with a difference,
Roadhouse Bar & Grill for steaks and tex-mex
and Diva Piccola for Italian among other
establishments.

fnbworld: What parameters
do you look at while reviewing a
restro?

Sid: We follow a list of
60+ points of observation from the quality of the
ice to the maintenance chart in the washrooms; too
numerous to list here as I’m sure
you’ll agree. We are, however, planning to
release our review infrastructure to the public so
everyone can use them to review food
establishments on their own, in possibly a more
thorough manner.